Dual voting and second-order effects in the quasi-simultaneous 2019 Spanish regional and national elections

Abstract

The 2019 regional elections in Spain were held in a context of political instability and polarization in the country and just 28 days after the national elections. Taking advantage of this unprecedented quasi-simultaneous electoral setting, this article analyzes vote-switching between regional and national elections, both at the aggregate and individual levels. Specifically, it explores whether the 2019 regional elections match the expectations of the second-order election model. The results show that quasi-simultaneity between regional and national elections did not entail a higher level of election congruence. In addition, while most of the predictions of the second-order election model regarding aggregate election results hold for the 2019 regional elections, our findings suggest that dual voting at the individual level does not respond to the logic of the second-order election model but rather to regional political considerations.